The Waterproof Bible

Product Details

A magical story of love and the isolation that defines the modern condition - Andrew Kaufman pulls off the near impossible and creates a wholly original allegorical tale that is both emotionally resonant and outlandishly fun.

Rebecca Reynolds is a young woman with a most unusual and inconvenient problem: no matter how hard she tries, she can't stop her emotions from escaping her body and entering the world around her. Luckily she's developed a nifty way to trap and store her powerful emotions in personal objects - but how many shoeboxes can a girl fill before she feels crushed by her past?

Three events force Rebecca to change her ways: the unannounced departure of her husband, Stewart; the sudden death of Lisa, her musician sister; and, while on her way to Lisa's funeral, a near-crash with what appears to be a giant frogwoman recklessly speeding in a Honda Civic.

Meanwhile, Lisa's inconsolable husband skips the funeral and flies to Winnipeg where he begins a bizarre journey that strips him of everything before he can begin to see a way through his grief… all with the help of a woman who calls herself God.

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Reviews

Rated 5 out of
5 by
Claire_Humphrey from
What you believe with all your heartAndrew Kaufman's sweet and serious second novel follows three protagonists: Rebecca, a woman whose emotions are felt by people around her; Lewis, a rock star who's just lost his wife; and Aberystwyth, an amphibious frog-woman driving across Canada in a stolen Honda Civic. The loss of Lewis's wife, who was also Rebecca's sister, is the catalyst that tips both Lewis and Rebecca into soul-searching journeys. Lewis goes to Winnipeg; Rebecca goes to the storage locker where she keeps the belongings that hold all of her most emotional moments. And before they part, they nearly collide with Aby, who has not yet totally figured out how to drive her car. What follows is a wonderful mixture of the surreal and the perfectly grounded. The Canada of this book is precisely delineated, with exact distances in kilometres. The characters stay in real hotels and drive past recognizable landmarks. The reader is also treated to descriptions of Aby's religion, the boat Rebecca's ex-husband builds in the middle of the Prairies, and the objects Rebecca uses like genie-bottles to siphon off and contain her emotions. As with Kaufman's excellent debut, All My Friends Are Superheroes, the whimsical concepts are offset by an emotional truthfulness that leaves the reader aching but smiling.

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The Waterproof Bible

The following ISBNs are associated with this title:

ISBN - 10: 0307357635

ISBN - 13: 9780307357632

Read from the Book

1The woman who couldn’t keep her feelings to herself The limousine taking Rebecca Reynolds and Lewis Taylor to the funeral had stalled in the middle of an intersection. The long black car faced west on Queen, straddling Broadview Avenue in the east end of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Rebecca and Lewis sat on opposite ends of the bench seat, and no one sat between them. Although they were both grieving the loss of Lisa Taylor—Rebecca’s l ittle sister and Lewis’s wife—the two were similar in few other ways. Lewis was relatively short. Both his suit and his haircut were fashionable. Rebecca was quite tall, her naturally brown hair cut in a shoulder-length bob, and she wore a simple black dress. But as the driver repeatedly turned the key in the ignition, they each stared out their own window, mirroring each other. Rebecca idly wondered if it was a problem with the engine or whether they’d simply run out of gas. She ran her hands over her skirt until the fabric was without wrinkles. She realized that this corner was close to E.Z. Self Storage, where she rented unit #207. She played with her clutch, snapping the clasp open and closed. Then she looked down at the carpeted floor and remembered that she was in a limousine, travelling to her sister’s funeral. Her grief, sadness and guilt returned. As Rebecca felt these emotions, Lewis became overwhelmed with them as well. The grief, sadness and guilt were heavy and painful. It had been three days and eleven hours since he’d discovered h

From the Publisher

A magical story of love and the isolation that defines the modern condition - Andrew Kaufman pulls off the near impossible and creates a wholly original allegorical tale that is both emotionally resonant and outlandishly fun.

Rebecca Reynolds is a young woman with a most unusual and inconvenient problem: no matter how hard she tries, she can't stop her emotions from escaping her body and entering the world around her. Luckily she's developed a nifty way to trap and store her powerful emotions in personal objects - but how many shoeboxes can a girl fill before she feels crushed by her past?

Three events force Rebecca to change her ways: the unannounced departure of her husband, Stewart; the sudden death of Lisa, her musician sister; and, while on her way to Lisa's funeral, a near-crash with what appears to be a giant frogwoman recklessly speeding in a Honda Civic.

Meanwhile, Lisa's inconsolable husband skips the funeral and flies to Winnipeg where he begins a bizarre journey that strips him of everything before he can begin to see a way through his grief… all with the help of a woman who calls herself God.

From the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

ANDREW KAUFMAN's critically acclaimed first book, All My Friends Are Superheroes, was a cult hit and has been translated into six languages. Kaufman is also an accomplished screenwriter and has completed a Director's Residency at the Canadian Film Centre. He lives in Toronto with his wife and their two children.

From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

“A quirky, tender, fantastical page-turner that makes even the most torrential of feelings––despair, doubt and desperation––feel good. . . . The Waterproof Bible is a witty, poignant stroke of beauty that deftly explores deluges of desire and need, fear and faith. The Kaufman current is powerful.” — Lisa Foad, The Globe and Mail

“Kaufman is in total control of his universe. He doesn’t put quotation marks on either the realistic or fantastic, and the transition between the two states is always smooth.”— Brian Joseph David, EYE WEEKLY

“There are very few Canadian authors, other than Sheila Heti, Yann Martel and occasionally Atwood, willing to submerge that deeply into magic. . . . His prose is so refreshingly heartfelt and natural that he makes it easy to believe.” — The Coast (Halifax)

“Elegantly written literary novel, packed with plot. . . . The great pleasure is in the story and its permutations. . . . How it plays out, as opposed to what it may finally mean, is Kaufman’s chief achievement, as [is] his fluid technique in crosscutting the strands of the novel into its many resolutions. . . . Bizarre as the story grows, it never unravels, or becomes inconsistent. All goes, well, swimmingly.”— Winnipeg Free Press

“Those who enjoyed All My Friends Are Superheroes . . . should be similarly taken with his sophomore effort, The Waterproof Bible, which retains the romance, humour and inventive allegory of the earlier book.” — Quill & Quire